Container handling systems have guide units that guide containers through the system from one processing station to the next. These processing stations carry out various processing steps, such as filling, closing, and labeling.
The guide units can also be those components that convey the containers to be treated from one container-handling system to another. Lateral guides are also provided to prevent containers from falling off the side of such a component.
The guide units, in particular rotary guide units, such as format parts designed like a star or system portions in which the container treatment takes place, are tailored to the properties of the container to be handled. Examples of such properties include container shape, container weight, and/or the container size. To permit a container handling system to be used for different containers, the guide units are at least partially exchangeable. As a result, installable format parts exist for different container types.
Container-guide railings arranged on the guide units are also tailored to container properties. Examples of such properties include the size and type of container. The container-guide railings are usually long guide rails that are arranged in adjacent railing supports that are spaced apart on the guide unit and along which the bottles slide in the container guide system.
As they move, the containers make direct contact with the guide rails. This tends to regularly wear out the guide rails. It is therefore advantageous, to be able to replace the guide rails easily.
In order to make it possible to install and/or replace the container guide railings in a safe and easy manner and to ensure reliable guidance of the containers against the container guide railing, the orientation of the railing supports relative to one another and/or the orientation of the railing supports on a basic body of the guide units, that is to say a basic body portion, must take place with a very high degree of accuracy.
Individual railing supports usually comprise a profile body of complex shape for holding the container guide railing. These railing supports are welded to a format part of the guide unit. The task of precisely orienting the large number of railing supports and to adjusting the railing supports if necessary consumes copious amounts of time. To make matters worse, the nature of the work is such that it is quite easy to make errors during the welding or adjustment process. As a result, it is not unusual for follow-up work to be required.
Another disadvantage of this prior art lies in the fact that, if the weld seams are not optimally produced, detachment of the connection and hence an undesired failure of the container guide railing may occur. Cracks or shrink holes in the weld seams may also make it considerably more difficult to clean such a system.